The Spare Man, page 12
This was temporary. This would be worth it. The acubot was a compact octopoid marvel that used the resiliency of eight small minds to guide each needled limb independently while coordinating a treatment plan with a central core.
As the light prick of the needles found homes, Tesla flexed her fingers against the soft cotton sheet, breathing through the pain while she waited for the acupuncture effects to kick in. Most days, acubot time was a sanctioned opportunity for a nap.
This morning, the images from the hallway kept running through her head. Sighing, Tesla opened the passenger manifest that Fantine had liberated and splashed photos of people from Earth, LEO platforms, Mars, LMO platforms, and Venusian cloud cities across her HUD.
Shal should be doing this. He always said that most murder victims were killed by someone they knew. So who knew Saikawa? Haldan Kuznetsova, clearly. The magician, Nile Silver. The bald passenger.
Haldan had said that he didn’t know anyone else on the cruise, but George appeared to have at least met other people. She tabbed through the manifest to George Saikawa’s entry.
Apparently, Saikawa was staying in the Grand Royal Suites in the cabin next to her old one. And interestingly … George had a group code, which meant she was traveling with a larger group, but Haldan did not. Interesting, but Tesla didn’t know what it meant.
“Data is only as good as the questions you ask…” She stared at the group code. “All right, Gimlet. Who else is in this group, because that’s a group that knows George.”
Tesla set up a search on the group code attached to George’s account, which returned seven other passengers.
Mahjabin Burke-Gafney (she/her)
Annie Smith (she/her)
Jalna Smith (she/her)
Thersilochus Pilger (they/them)
Barry Fagin (he/him)
Michele Berdinis (she/her)
Deston Koeben (ze/zir)
A total of eight people. The Grand Royal Suites on the Terran level had eight cabins, but she and Shal had one of those. She cross-referenced the group of individuals with the cabins, and of that list only George, Annie Smith, and Jalna Smith were staying in the Grand Royal Suites.
Their cabin number was on the other side of Kuznetsova’s from Tesla’s.
She opened Annie Smith’s file and recognized her picture. She was the curvy older passenger with the low-rise chartreuse pants who had gone before Tesla at karaoke. She was an older white woman, and her face was overly smooth in the way of someone who indulged in excessive microaugma collegoidal skin treatments.
She’d also been in the hall later that night after George Saikawa had been murdered.
Tesla dismissed the acubot so she could get out of bed. As the needles withdrew from her skin, feeling like little taps, she read what information she could from the manifest.
Annie Smith’s partner, Jalna, was thin and had a map of wrinkles lining dark skin beneath a cap of hair dyed a vivid sunset pink. Tesla would have remembered seeing her near Saikawa the night before last. She might have been in the karaoke bar but had definitely not been in the hall.
Had they been who was supposed to get the misdelivered steak dinner?
Tesla reactivated the DBPS and carefully pushed herself up. Gimlet raised her head, watching the acubot as it stowed itself back in its carrier. It was always tempting to spring up when she felt better, but that was a good way to make sure that feeling better didn’t last. Hauling on a dark-green silk tank and a pair of flowing brown cotton trousers, she headed to the suite’s writing desk with Gimlet trotting along beside her.
She settled in the office chair and pulled out a sheet of stupidly expensive stationery. The nib of her fountain pen glided across the paper as she wrote down Annie’s and Jalna’s names.
It was old school. Very old school. Archaically old school, which is why Tesla was writing on actual paper. Tesla’s grandma had always said that the only thing that someone couldn’t hack into was a piece of paper. Granted, they could steal it, but only if it was somewhere they could get to.
And then they had to be able to read it, which is why she was writing in cursive.
It didn’t count as a murder investigation if she just made lists, right?
Body in recycler
George Saikawa in hall
She tapped her pen on the page. There was no telling who had dumped the body, but she had seen people in the hallway the night George Saikawa died.
Dr. Fish
Candy, medic
Annie Smith, passenger
And then there were the people whom George seemed to know:
Haldan Kuznetsova
Nile Silver, magician
bald passenger
Immanuel Rudawski, server?
Other people of interest:
Josie, bartender
Yuki, server who also matched Shal’s description
Of those, the two she hadn’t talked to who seemed easiest to find were the Smiths. She tapped her nails against the desk and looked down at Gimlet. “Going to visit Annie and Jalna Smith on my own would be desperately stupid, wouldn’t it?”
Gimlet cocked her head to the side.
“You’re right. They aren’t letting your daddy out anytime soon.”
Gimlet’s head cocked the other direction.
“Valid point. If I’m going to visit them, I should let someone know where I’m going. Any suggestions?”
The little dog stood, tail wagging, and opened her mouth to pant happily up at Tesla. She bounced off her front legs, her signal for wanting to go for a walk.
“Perfect! Cleverest dog.” Tesla capped her fountain pen and picked up the ship phone that sat on the desk in Old Planet splendor. She called Shal’s room in sick bay.
“This is Bob.”
“Bob! What a delight.” She folded the paper in half and stuck it in her pocket. “Are you guarding my spouse to keep him safe from the actual murderer who is still at large?”
“Chief Wisor asked me to stay here.”
“Woooooonderful.” She pushed herself out of the chair and walked over to fetch Gimlet’s gear. “May I speak to Shal?”
“No.”
Tesla stopped in the middle of the floor. “No? Just, no? Come now, surely we can find a solution together.”
“You can talk to Chief Wisor.”
Even when he wasn’t in person, Bob was a wall of annoying. Tesla wrinkled her nose and got the harness and vest. “All right … So, if he told you that I’m not supposed to talk to Shal at all, I’ll take that up with him. But if he just said that Shal isn’t supposed to have any unsupervised conversations, can you put me on speaker? That way you can hear everything and—”
In the background, she could just make out Shal’s voice. The noise-suppression software muted him to an indistinguishable baritone, but she recognized the rise and fall of his voice. Bob sighed and the room tone on the line changed.
“—time when Fantine sued someone for wearing their own pants and—”
“Shal?”
“Hey, doll. Everything okay?”
“Yes.” She knelt with the harness, pinning the phone between ear and shoulder. Presented with her walking accouterments, Gimlet stuck her head through the harness, tail wagging ferociously. “I’m taking Gimlet for a walk. I thought we’d go to the Terran-level Grand Royal Suites and then I’d bring her down to you.”
“The Grand Royal, huh? Not the animal-relief area?” His tone almost visibly sharpened with interest.
“Well, Auberi is such a favorite of hers.” She tapped her nails on the receiver of the phone, hoping he’d recognize the Morse code she was using to tell him Annie’s cabin number. Not that he would know why she was telling him that, but she just kept repeating the numbers over and over.
“Okay … okay. Better get going. Bring her by when you’re done, all right? I miss my two best girls.”
“Sure thing.” She stopped tapping and slipped Gimlet’s red service vest on. The little dog settled, becoming all business. Tesla kept her voice light. “Send out the search parties if we’re not there in time for dinner.”
He laughed. “Dinner? I’ll hope to see you by lunch.”
“It’s a deal.” Tesla grabbed the back of a chair and used it to get herself up off the ground. “Thanks for your help, Bob!”
* * *
Being back on Terran level made Tesla’s balance better, but she felt every footfall in her bones. Keeping her gaze on Gimlet, she walked past Auberi’s desk at the Yacht Club, trying to look as if she were heading to places she was fully sanctioned to be. Gimlet helped by moving with the businesslike intention of a small dog on a walk. Her little legs trotted with swift purpose across the floor.
“Ah, good morning.” Auberi beckoned her to the desk.
Darn it. “Hi, Auberi.”
“I’m afraid your former cabin is still off-limits.”
“It’s fine. We’re just going for a little walk as a sort of Gimlet release.” Tesla dropped Gimlet’s lead. The Westie heard the command ‘Gimlet, release’ and took off, tail wagging as she headed into the corridor that led to Tesla’s old cabin, which was conveniently two doors down from Annie and Jalna’s. “Oh, bother! I’d better get her.”
Hurrying before Auberi could come up with another reason to stop her, Tesla followed Gimlet. The Golden Promenade with its sparkling floor jogged to obscure the curve of the ship and she walked past the giant painting of a woman wearing a crystal-blue ball gown in a bathtub filled with trees. Cruise ship art was so, so odd.
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Auberi wasn’t in sight, Tesla gave a formal command. “Gimlet, Gimlet, come.”
She sniffed one more door frame and then trotted back, trailing her lead. Tesla steadied herself on the wall as she bent to pick it up. The Coriolis effect was so much more manageable on the Terran level. Right. Now to visit the Smiths’ cabin.
Her old cabin had a Do Not Disturb sign on it, which must be the cruise-ship version of yellow caution tape. She braced herself for Haldan Kuznetsova to emerge from his cabin, but the door stayed mercifully shut. Next to it, the Smiths’ cabin had a magnetic message board stuck to it with messages written in awkward print.
Happy Anniversary, Love Birds! Don’t forget the group meditation session tonight!
She looked up and down the corridor, taking note of things that hadn’t seemed important before someone was murdered. There were eight cabins in this section of the ship, and all of the doors were on the right-hand side of the corridor, except for a service door midway down. That meant the jog in the hallway was also intended to create more space for the cabins by allowing them to be twice the depth of the junior suites.
Annie and Jalna’s door was directly across from the service entrance.
Wetting her lips, Tesla knocked. Gimlet sniffed the door frame. They waited. She knocked again.
Tesla considered leaving a message on the magnetic board, but what would she say? Hey, want to talk about murder?!?!
The service door opened and their old stateroom attendant pushed a room-service cart into the hall. Jenny was tiny and broad-shouldered, with enormous gray eyes, and she would absolutely recognize Tesla even if Auberi didn’t report that she was here.
“Mx. Zuraw!” Jenny froze in the middle of the hall, shifting to keep the cart between her and Tesla. “I thought they’d moved you to a different part of the ship.”
“They did. Gimlet just pulled on her lead and thought this was still home. It’s good to see you.” It did not look like the feeling was mutual. Was that because Jenny had been told that Shal was the murderer or because she was in cahoots with whoever was? Tesla needed to shift the mood. She glanced down at Gimlet, who was sitting calmly at her feet watching the conversation. Maybe she should let the little dog work her distracting magic. Tesla crouched and snapped the quick release on Gimlet’s vest. “Gimlet, go say hi.”
Melting a little, Jenny knelt at the end of the cart and hesitated. “Oh—oh, are you sure?”
“Absolutely. She likes you.”
Jenny let Gimlet give her kisses all over her face. “Poor little girl. This must be so confusing for you.”
“For all of us.”
Shal had thought that the murderer might have been someone on staff. Jenny had access to their room but didn’t match Shal’s description of the person he chased. She also wore a comm badge. Theoretically the ship would know where she was at all times, and any questions Tesla asked would potentially be heard by someone else on the ship.
How did you ask someone if they took a murder weapon out of your room? “I hope you haven’t had any trouble because of”—Tesla waved her hand in the air to encompass—“everything.”
Jenny scratched Gimlet’s ears. “What—what do you mean?”
“Well. I mean, with the murder, there must be added security. That seems like it would make it harder for you.”
“It’s not—I should get back to work.” Jenny stood, brushing the Gimlet fur off her dark-blue trousers.
“Of course.” It sounded like there wasn’t additional security, or at least nothing around these rooms. If she could give tips, she might try to bribe Jenny, although that would probably make it even more obvious that Tesla was snooping. “Well, I’d better let you get back to work.”
Jenny smiled at her and went back to the cart.
Gritting her teeth, Tesla snapped the vest back on and walked Gimlet to the lounge.
The concierge was occupied with another passenger and merely nodded, smiling at Gimlet. The Smiths had to come back eventually. The lounge was a pleasant-enough place, and Tesla had more passenger manifests to review. She walked Gimlet over to one of the café tables tucked into a corner behind a ficus, just in case Kuznetsova came through, and settled in to wait.
Tesla checked her HUD. She had another two hours before “lunch” time could reasonably be said to have passed and Shal would worry. Officially worry.
FRISKY BUSINESS
5 blackberries
3 slices jalapeño
3 wheels cucumber
1 oz lime juice
1 tbsp honey syrup
2 tsp Angostura bitters
4 oz soda water
Muddle blackberries, jalapeño, and 2 cucumber wheels in cocktail shaker. Add lime juice, honey syrup, bitters. Dry shake to combine and strain into rocks glass over a single large cube. Top with soda water. Garnish with remaining cucumber wheel.
She was nearly out of time and in danger of falling asleep at the table. Tesla had been trying to find the bald passenger in the manifest and had to keep backing up as her attention flagged. There were an astounding number of bald white people, and they honestly all looked alike.
The Yacht Club lobby doors opened and her targets finally arrived. The older couple made a study in contrasts. Jalna was thin and Lunar tall, but moved as if completely comfortable in the near one-g of this section. Annie was rounded and Earth short, wearing gold lamé pants around generous hips in a style from thirty years ago.
Tesla had had a long time to think about her approach. She had one sure weapon in her arsenal, and that weapon was now sans vest. Tesla stood as casually as she could. Quietly, she said, “Gimlet, release. Gimlet, go say hi.”
Reliably, the little dog made a beeline for the new people who might, if the world were just and proper, have treats and be her new best friends. She was a dog, not a robot, and she was a dog who thought she was off-duty. Gimlet bounded up to them, tail wagging so hard her entire back end twisted from side to side. With her ears perked up and pointed toward the pair, she was so eagerly cute that she might as well have been a plush toy.
“Oh! Oh! Tu es magnifique.” Jalna dropped to kneel, and Gimlet responded by standing on her hind legs. The tall woman’s voice was elegantly Lunar French with an unexpectedly low timbre. “Ton parent était-æl un voleur? Parce qu’æl a volé les étoiles du ciel pour les mettre dans tes yeux.”
“I hope she’s not bothering you!” Tesla hurried after her dog, smiling at the other passengers. Her pulse was thrumming faster as she joined them. Annie, the smaller, curvy passenger, had definitely been standing in the group around George Saikawa in the hall that night.
“Not at all. She’s just the cutest thing.” Annie’s voice had a decidedly Midwestern American accent. “Designer?”
“A Westie. It’s an old breed.” Tesla reached for Gimlet’s lead, trying to act as if she had only just recognized the woman. “You were … you were at karaoke night before last? And then … after.”
“Oh! Yes. Wasn’t that just terrible? Poor Jalna missed all of the … well.” She offered her companion a hand as the tall woman rose to her feet. “And how are you holding up? I don’t mean to pry, but I couldn’t help overhearing—well, I don’t think any of us could the way Mx. Kuznetsova was shouting, poor thing. Are you all right?”
“Mm.” It was as noncommittal a noise as Tesla could make. “You’re in the suites too?”
“Yes.” Jalna smiled down at her companion. “My spouse and I … As it is our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, we indulge a little.”
“Just a little!” The curvy woman patted Jalna’s arm. “The yoga is very spiritual!”
“As you say, Annie.” Jalna planted a kiss on top of her head.
“Yoga, hm?” Tesla fell into step beside Jalna and Annie as they headed toward the godawful Golden Promenade, with Gimlet leading the way. “What style do you favor?”
“Anusara-revival.” Annie winked at her. “Don’t let this old body fool you; I can still put my feet behind my head.”
Jalna tucked her hand into her spouse’s arm. “Ask her what she used to do.”
“Um…” Tesla followed them across the concierge reception area as if she were supposed to be going down the hall again, relying on her dog and her innate sense of privilege to handle the rest. “What did you used to do?”
“A contortionist!” Annie grinned. “I was a back-bender, don’t you know. I couldn’t fit into a box now, mind you, but—”
